Whitfield Named Chiefs’ Player Of Year

REPLAY: 2-27-97 The phone number to order Spokane Indians tickets is 535-2922. The number was listed incorrectly in Wednesday’s edition.

Spokane Chiefs center Trent Whitfield is one of 18 nominees for the Four Broncos Memorial Trophy that goes to the Western Hockey League Player of the Year.

Whitfield is the Chiefs’ AT&T Player of the Year. He was named Tuesday with the club’s other annual award winners.

They are Brad Ference, rookie of the year; Greg Leeb, sportsmanship award, and Hugh Hamilton, defenseman of the year.

Other West Division player of the year nominees are Brian Boucher, Tri-City; Todd Robinson, Portland; Patrick Marleau, Seattle; Brett McLean, Kelowna, and Joel Kwiatkowski, Prince George. The Kamloops Blazers were to announce their player of the year tonight.

Cougars name football aide

Mike Walker is the new defensive line coach at Washington State University, the Cougars announced Tuesday.

Walker, 38, replaces Gary Emanuel, who is leaving to coach defensive tackles at Purdue.

Walker, a former defensive lineman for the Cougars and in the Canadian Football League, has been a graduate assistant at WSU since 1994.

He played at WSU in 1979 and 1981 before playing with the Hamilton Tigercats from 1982-89 and the Edmonton Eskimos from 1989-92. His playing career was followed by brief stints as an assistant at Decatur and Federal Way high schools.

Emanuel, 36, has been a WSU assistant since 1994. He joins the staff of new Purdue coach Joe Tiller, a WSU assistant from 1971-73 and 1989-90.

Indians tickets selling at quick pace

The Spokane Indians announced they are ahead of last year’s record pace for sales of season tickets and mini-season tickets.

The Indians have sold more than 1,250 season tickets, a pace 50 ahead of last year’s 1,640. Their mini-season sales of more than 1,200 are on a pace 200 ahead of last year’s 1,910.

Spokane, a member of the shortseason Class A Northwest League, opens its season at home June 17 against the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes (formerly the Bellingham Giants). For ticket information, call 535-7568.

, DataTimes